ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano and NASA's Chris Cassidy will take part in two spacewalks outside the International Space Station on 9 and 16 July. They performed a spacesuit fit check as part of the spacewalk preparations.

This rubble-strewn model of the Red Planet in ESA's ESTEC technical centre is used to put prototype planetary rovers through their paces. Officially known as the Automation & Planetary Robotics Lab, its nickname is the ‘Mars Yard’. Dutch students explore this alien environment in the photo shown here, part of a series taken by image gallery TechniekBeeldbank.nu. The site offers the media positive images of engineering to appeal to young people.

This remarkable image was taken by ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano through the International Space Station’s window on Earth: Cupola. Luca jokingly posted on Twitter: “Proof that the Earth is indeed round.”

The Herschel space observatory is shown here in monochrome and negative against a backdrop of stars, the latter streaked by the telescope tracking the motion of the observatory as it drifts away from its position at Lagrange Point 2 into orbit around the Sun.

The image was taken on 27 June 2013 with the 2 m Faulkes Telescope North on Haleakala, Hawaii using a Bessel R' band filter, and is a combination of seven 120-second exposures.

The Faulkes Telescopes are operated by the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network.

The foothills of the Andes mountains near the southern coast of Peru were captured by the Kompsat-2 satellite.

The Andes stretch about 7000 km from Venezuela down South America’s west coast to the top of Argentina. The mountain rage is the result of the Nazca and Antarctic tectonic plates moving under the South American plate – a geological process called ‘subduction’. This process is also responsible for the Andes range’s volcanic activity.

Running across the centre of the image we can see a patchwork of agricultural plots along what appears to be a source of water runoff from the mountains – although there looks to be little to no water present when this image was captured. This area is extremely dry, as evident in the sparse vegetation.

Nearby to the southwest of the area pictured is the site of the famous Nazca lines (not visible) – a group of geoglyphs depicting a monkey, spider, hummingbird and other designs. Scratched on the surface of the arid plain, the figures spread over 280 m in length, while some geometrical shapes stretch for kilometres.

The Korea Aerospace Research Institute’s Kompsat-2 satellite acquired this image on 4 May 2011. ESA supports Kompsat as a Third Party Mission, meaning it uses its ground infrastructure and expertise to acquire, process and distribute data to users.

Colour-coded topographical map of the southeastern flank of the Olympus Mons volcano on Mars. The transitions from the sloping flanks of the volcano (white, red and yellow colours) to the steep cliff faces (green to light blue) and the smooth plains at its base (dark blue) can clearly be seen.

The image was taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA’s Mars Express on 21 January 2013 (orbit 11524), with a ground resolution of approximately 17 m per pixel. The image centre is located at approximately 14°N / 229°E.